


Numb

by imogeline



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 10:37:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14353746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imogeline/pseuds/imogeline
Summary: Kaito waved his hand vaguely. “I always thought that, like, the—what is it—the emotional truth’s what’s most important, you know?”Kokichi had simply opted to trail his hand over the expanse of Kaito’s chest. He said, “What if you don’t have any emotions?”---Kaito and Kokichi spend a night together after the game.





	Numb

Kokichi decided that after the game ended and he woke up into what was perhaps an even crueler world he wasn’t going to cry real tears anymore. Fake crying was still a fair enough tool in his arsenal—a tool that got interviews ended early, people on the street to leave him alone, free candy when people would mistake him for a child rather than a celebrity—but anything honest was off limits.

He didn’t cry when he died and he didn’t when he woke up. He had done a fair amount of embarrassing, angry crying before all of that when Kaito had stood before him, struck dumb by their doom. When Kokichi woke up and people speaking softly as if he was fragile enough to shatter into a million pieces if their voices rose above a certain volume asked him if he knew who he was and where he was and what had happened and he had said, “I was lied to,” he didn’t cry. 

Kokichi knew some of the others had, had seen them wandering around in tears most days, but he decided not to feel anything. If he was numb, then the only crying he could do would be fake crying.

Kaito insists he never cries. It’s not a thing men do. Kokichi would roll his eyes but let him have it. He’d leave Kaito’s walls alone if he left his in peace.

But sometimes it becomes unclear what’s a genuine attempt to take a wrecking ball to Kokichi’s emotional house of card, and what’s just a haphazard blunder of Kaito navigating his world like he was the person he used to be. Like he was someone who could actually get through to a person like him. Of course, Kokichi knows he has to take some responsibility—the fault doesn’t lie solely on Kaito’s rather broad shoulders that Kokichi’s crawled into bed with him perhaps one or two or a dozen times. 

And that’s all fine. Sometimes it makes him feel less numb, sometimes more. Sometimes there are days where Kokichi decides he has to shut off his already meager emotional availability and just lies there. On those days it doesn’t even bother him that it feels like he’s being crushed. Kokichi also decided that when he woke up into a far crueler world than he could have imagined that lying to yourself is okay sometimes.

Kaito hates when he does that. Kaito kisses his face and Kokichi looks at him dead eyed until he manages to recapture enough of his old smirk to make some quip about his sexual prowess. Kaito scowls and rolls off of him. He says, “if you didn’t want to do anything tonight, you could have just said so.”

“If I didn’t want to,” Kokichi says, pressing a far more condescending kiss to Kaito’s face than the ones he had given him earlier. “Then I would have just stayed in my room and enjoyed my own wonderful company by myself.”

Kaito furrows his brow, too earnestly studying him for Kokichi’s comfort. So Kokichi says, “it’s okay to be a disappointment sometimes, Momota-chan.”

“You know this is my goddamn bed and I can kick you.”

“True,” Kokichi hums. “So am I kicked out?”

Kaito sighs and turns so Kokichi’s left with his back to direct any more mocking to. “Dunno why I put up with you,” he mumbles to himself.

“Because I’m perfect in every way,” he says. “And you love me.”

Kaito says, “yeah, yeah, whatever,” and Kokichi doesn’t like how bothered he is that Kaito didn’t argue back. 

With the new quiet, Kokichi takes a second to let the emotion drift off his face, the feel of Kaito’s hands off his body, everything gone until the only thing he can feel is the slight heat of a too heavy blanket and a far too hot bed partner. It takes a bit longer than he would like for numbness to come back to him, but it does, and he turns away from to Kaito to face the darkness.

Then the quiet fades out in favor of Kaito’s soft snuffling noises. It’s enough to make Kokichi drift back out of his own head and remember that he’s not quite as alone as his lies would tell him.

He doesn’t exactly know why he picked Kaito. Maybe because it’s easier for him to hurt him without feeling guilty or maybe because the first thing Kaito had done when he woke up was to ask, “I didn’t kill Ouma?” and actually laugh in relief when he had seen him alive. Kokichi had long since rationalized, however, that the relief likely stemmed from the assurance that he wasn't a killer, not that Kokichi's life had somehow been spared by fate. For all his bravado, he's not arrogant enough to think his being alive could be the cause of any laughter.

But, still, so many people seem like ghosts and Kaito seems so alive, and he gets angry in a way that Kokichi can’t quite describe when he acts like a corpse on their nights together. 

But Kokichi feels just a touch too hot to trick himself into thinking he’s dead. 

The conversation they had had about crying had taken place in a moment like this, with Kaito awake and concentrating and giving Kokichi answers that he didn’t quite like but couldn’t articulate why. Kaito had thrown his words from the game back at him in his regular clumsy, unintended way—telling him pretending his emotions didn’t exist wasn’t good for anything except more heartache. Kokichi had asked him why he insisted on not crying over his private miseries then, and Kaito had gone quiet, only muttering, “that’s different.”

But he doesn't jab at the holes in Kaito’s armor even when they are so, so obvious. Kokichi thinks the time for that has passed—the last time he tried to, someone died over it, after all. 

No one will die now. The thing pressing down on him is Kaito’s arms, not the press. 

Kokichi blinks at the thought and looks down to see somewhere in his musings Kaito had shifted to throw one of his arms over his scrawny waist. He’s warm and heavy and Kokichi’s only annoyance is at himself for letting his own thoughts—his own obsession with distance—distract him into letting someone crawl so close. 

Kokichi huffs as he hears Kaito shift closer still, and his snoring increases in volume as they come to share a pillow. He feels Kaito press his face to the nape of his neck, and the heat radiating off him rises in intensity. 

Groaning, “Momota-chan,” and prodding at his arm have little success, but Kokichi doesn’t try very hard. Accepting his fate for the night is giving in, even if Kokichi doesn’t know what exactly to. 

Kaito had said to him before on a night when Kokichi had his head pillowed on his chest, “it’s fine if you wanna lie about shit, you know—whatever helps you, man.”

“Oh?” he had replied. “Is this really Momota-chan’s bed? Hey, Momota-chan, you’d tell me if you'd been replaced by an evil twin, right? Though then again, evil twins are the ones with the bad facial hair, so what does that make you…”

Kaito had flicked his forehead. “Don’t be a dick. I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking is all, and, like, given what’s happened—I don’t know—if you think lying’ll help you figure out who you are, then you should do it.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Kokichi asked. “Boo, if I can’t see the real Momota-chan when he’s naked, when can I see him?”

“I just said not to be a fucking dick,” Kaito said. “And I don’t know,” he waved a hand vaguely. “Even before all this crap, I always thought that, like, the—what is it—the emotional truth’s what’s most important, you know?”

Though he had another teasing comment at the ready, Kokichi had simply opted to trail his hand over the expanse of Kaito’s chest. “What if you don’t have any emotions?”

Kaito snorted. “What does that mean? You’re not a robot.”

“What are you talking about? Are you saying I’m not Keeboy?”

He laughed. “Shut up—you know what I mean.”

“And I mean, if I don’t have emotions, then there’s no truth,” Kokichi had said. “Isn’t that what you said?”

He glanced up to see Kaito frowning down at him. “Ouma, you have emotions.”

“Do I?” Kokichi said. “I’d like to see some evidence, please and thank you.”

Kaito sighed. “Dunno why everything has to be a fight with you. Swear I could fucking say the sky is blue and you’d argue with me.”

“Of course,” Kokichi had said. “Because right now it’s night, so I’m pretty sure that means the sky is black.”

“Fuck you.”

“Momota-chan, you already did that,” Kokichi said. “Geeze, did you already forget me that easily? Just what notch in your bedpost am I?”

And Kaito had risen to the bait because that’s what he does, and Kokichi pried himself out of his arms when he deemed that he was too hot and too sweaty and feeling a little too much like he was being crushed and it was all Kaito’s fault. 

The nights Kokichi stays in his own room and stares at the sky aren’t cold. They feel like nothing. 

Now, Kaito holds him a little tighter, and Kokichi knows what he could do if he truly wanted to be as numb as his lies painted him. But he stays. It’s not comfortable, and Kaito’s hold on him isn’t one he returns, but something he accepts. 

The dark of the night still stares back at him. The sky is black, the world is cruel, and Kokichi doesn’t cry anymore. And Kaito’s snores are too loud, and his arm’s too heavy, and his seams are too obvious to provide anyone comfort. 

Sometimes spending the night with Kaito makes him feel even number. And sometimes Kokichi doesn’t lie to himself. 

With a sigh, he places one of his tiny hands over Kaito’s lazily slung over him. There’s a difference between not lying and actually being honest. 

He thinks, in the morning, maybe he could pick a fight with Kaito over it. Maybe that would be too much. Maybe that should be off limits.

When the morning comes, Kokichi still says, “So, Momota-chan, what if I give up lies, but also give up telling the truth, just to keep things fair.”

Kaito drags a hand over his tired face, mumbling, “that’s it, I’m kicking you out.”

And Kokichi’s fake crying convinces him to let him stay.

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of a vr au though i guess you could probably figure that out by reading it aljfkjdfa but i just kinda felt like writing a kaito/kokichi cuddling fic but then it got sort of sad so here we are! i hope you enjoyed it anyway!!!


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